


5A

by neveranygoodupthere



Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: HP: EWE, M/M, Non-Explicit, Post-Canon, Post-War, Prostitution
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-04-25
Updated: 2018-04-25
Packaged: 2019-03-25 22:20:41
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,006
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13844214
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/neveranygoodupthere/pseuds/neveranygoodupthere
Summary: It’s his twenty fifth visit to the flat. A posh spot in midtown Manhattan with updated appliances, rooftop access, and a snooty doorman. A spot that five years ago would have been inconceivable to its resident. But war and death and time all wreak their changes.





	5A

**Author's Note:**

> Thanks to my beautiful beta KW who does not want me to link to her tumblr account but does love Drarry more than any person I know. Neither of us is British, but we tried. 
> 
> Thanks also to the prompter who wanted Harry as a prostitute in a canon world. This fic went through three or four iterations of me trying to figure that out, and I had a great time!
> 
> This is my first Harry Potter fic (at least, in a verrry long time/on Ao3), and I'm excited to be part of the fest. Please to enjoy!

It’s his twenty fifth visit to the flat. A posh spot in midtown Manhattan with updated appliances, rooftop access, and a snooty doorman. A spot that five years ago would have been inconceivable to its resident. But war and death and time all wreak their changes.

Five years ago, Harry had money and fame, the adoration of the entire wizarding world. Five years ago, Harry had friends who spent their days smiling and working and cobbling together a normal life, and their nights waking with screams.

Five years ago, the reporters and the admirers and the grief-stricken pulled at him, and when they couldn’t reach him they pulled at those around him until they snapped. A night in gaol and a hefty fine for Ron for punching a photographer from the Prophet when they were out for a beer. A brief stay in a mind healer’s ward for Hermione after being cornered in the cellar of a shop by an overzealous shopkeeper looking for an introduction. Complete and total destruction of the biggest thing George had left of his twin when he set off an explosive chain reaction using a Fanged Frisbee to get rid of an angry father screaming at Harry for not saving his son. It’s that last that finally sends Harry from the country.

But none of that matters when he’s visiting 344 W 49th St, 5A. In 344 W 49th St, 5A he spends the night with a man who wants to forget even more than Harry does. Harry’s paid to make him forget.

He doesn’t knock anymore. After his tenth visit, he got his own key. After the fifteenth he got his own toothbrush. The twentieth, his own drawer. He wonders what the twenty fifth will signify.

He finds Draco in his leather chair by the fire place, sipping whiskey. It’s not a good sign. Sprawled on the couch, or more likely on the bed, means it’s been a good day. In the kitchen cooking means it’s been a great day. That’s only happened twice as long as Harry’s been coming. But sipping whiskey in the leather chair means Harry’s going to have to work extra hard to keep the demons at bay. He hates himself for it sometimes, but the bad nights are Harry’s favorite.

“Hard day,” Harry asks, slipping the whiskey glass from his hand and taking a sip. Draco’s eyes burn into his and he licks his lips.

“I’ve a lot on my mind.”

“Of course you do,” Harry says meanly. It only makes Draco’s eyes burn hotter. “High-powered socialites lead very taxing lives.”

Instead of snapping back, Draco tilts his chin to the bar cart against the far wall. “Hand me that envelope.”

Harry hesitates just to needle him before crossing the room. He slides the envelope off the cart, but instead of handing it to Draco he glances inside to find a stack of cash and a folded piece of paper. He pulls out the cash. “Doesn’t this come at the end?”

“Not tonight.” Draco waves him over imperiously, and Harry suppresses a smile. Some things never change.

Draco takes the cash and the envelope. He tucks the cash back in and pulls the paper out. “I had Elena send me your rate sheet.”

Harry raises an eyebrow. “She keeps one of those?”

“She does when I ask for it.” There’s no chance of Harry hiding his smile at that. Draco catches it and allows himself a tiny, self-deprecating eye roll before dropping back into the game. “I want you to read this. Pick the ones you want to do tonight. If I think you’ve done a good job, you’ll get the amount listed.”

A frisson snakes down Harry’s spine. Draco’s eyes have gone heavy. He takes the piece of paper from him and reads down the rates. The list contains standard acts—blow jobs, mutual masturbation, fucking, but Elena has slipped in a few that Harry knows he’ll never do. She’s also priced them right as well. Harry picks up the envelope from Draco’s lap and flips through the money. It took him a while to get used to American currency, but now he can count it as quickly as a Vegas gambler. There’s enough there to cover the price if they perform every act on the sheet.

“Looks like you plan for this night to last a while.”

“Longer than you might think.”

Harry narrows his eyes at the cryptic comment, but quickly shrugs it off and leans down. He slides his tongue across Draco’s lips, parting them. He sucks first on the bottom, then on the top, before slanting his mouth for a proper kiss. Draco strokes his face gently before Harry pulls back. He holds out his hand.

“What?” Draco is gratifyingly glassy-eyed from only a single kiss.

“The sheet says a French kiss is twenty dollars. Pay up.”

* * *

  
Hours later, after they’ve moved to the bedroom and destroyed the bed almost beyond repair, Harry has a respectable stack of cash sitting on the nightstand next to him. There’s an even bigger stack still in the envelope by Draco, but Harry figures there’s always next week. He sighs contentedly and is very much prepared to beg him to find his wand and clean up the mess.

But when he rolls over to do just that, he finds Draco already turned to him, staring intently. Oh this does not bode well. This look—this is why the whiskey and the leather chair.

“What is it?” Harry’s never been one to pussyfoot around, but Draco hesitates. “Just spit it out.”

“Why do you do this? You know I would pay for everything—your flat, everything. You must know I would give that to you.”

“I couldn’t take—”

“Or I could help you get a real—sorry, a different—job.” Harry stares at him. He was not expecting this. They’ve had a fine arrangement going. Sure, feelings are perhaps a little stronger than is ideal, but everything has been fine.

“Come on, Harry. You don’t have to do this. You had plenty of money at home. Even if you didn’t want to live there, you could have brought it here. You have friends who would put you up—anything. I don’t understand. I want to.”

Harry doesn’t owe him an explanation. But Draco left England too. He fled the notoriety and the pain too. And he cares about Harry. Through the money and the games, he cares about him. Harry knows that, and feels the same. So maybe he can give him this.

“They used me and I got nothing from it,” he says, voice barely above a whisper. It’s not something he’s ever said aloud before, or planned to say. He’s barely said it to himself.

“What?”

“I gave everything to them,” he says. And out of nowhere—out of his very depths where he’s tried to lock down every emotion, the anger comes and he’s sitting up, almost yelling. “I gave it all--to Dumbledore, to the Order, to the entire fucking world. And I got nothing back from it. I was abused for them. I died for them. My friends’ lives were ended, destroyed. And the thanks I got was…what? Reporters beating down my door night and day? My friends being harassed and tormented just so people can get close to me? What bull shit.”

But Harry’s anger must spark Draco’s because he’s not only up but out of the bed.

“You think I wasn’t? You think Dumbledore and—and—Voldemort, and my own fucking father didn’t use me too? That I didn’t come across the fucking ocean and learn an entire new way of life just to get away from how they used me?” His breaths are almost gasps and Harry yanks himself from his rage. He doesn’t want to compare trauma with Draco, would do anything to keep that tortured look from his eyes. He gathers him up swiftly, holds him tight as tremors run down his body.

“I’m sorry, I’m sorry,” he murmurs, pulling him back down onto the bed, stroking his hair. “Shh, darling, shh.” The endearment is new, but Harry doesn’t wish to take it back. He hasn’t felt this tenderly…possibly ever. And something in the feeling soothes part of the rage in his soul.

Eventually, the tremors cease and Draco disentangles himself. His face is red and he refuses to look Harry in the eye.

“Don’t do that,” Harry says. He traces the line of Draco’s jaw, kisses the corner of his lips. Finally, Draco glances at him.

“I know that’s not what you were trying to do—say that you were used and I wasn’t.”

“No,” Harry says, not unkindly.

“I’m sorry.” But Harry’s not mad. Since the war, his emotions, especially the negative ones, run fast and hot, which is why he normally tries to keep a lid on them.

A sly look steals across his face. “Never thought I’d see the day Draco Malfoy apologized.”

“Oh fuck off.”

They grin at each other until Harry remembers what they’re talking about. He takes Draco’s hand, squeezes it, begs him to understand.

“They used me up,” he repeats. “And they gave me nothing back. So this, this job--I get to say who uses me. And I make sure I get mine back. Every time. I choose, and I get paid.”

Draco is silent for a long time, staring at their interlocked hands, and Harry begins to think he’s lost him. Then he meets Harry’s eyes and his are burning with as much passion as they held minutes ago, but this time they’re not filled with rage.

“I love you, Harry,” he says baldly. And Harry knows it’s the hardest thing he’s ever said in his life. “I don’t want to use you. I want to make love to you and I want it to be a gift. I paid you for everything tonight because it’s going to be the last time I pay you for anything, one way or another.”

Harry thinks that over. Remembers the months and months he’s been coming to 344 W 49th St, 5A. Their mutual horror upon discovering who Elena, Harry’s procurer she likes to be called, had matched them with. Harry’s desperation for money and control of his own will. Draco’s deep loneliness and longing for home. So deep he’d agreed to fuck Harry that first night, even at the exorbitant rate Harry charged him over what Elena had negotiated. So deep he’d asked Harry back the next week, and the week after.

He remembers each week as they fucked a little less and talked a little more. Secrets shared and confessions made and an envelope waiting on the table beside the door as Harry left. The envelope came to embarrass Draco but it always settled Harry. The closer he got to Draco, the more reckless and out of control he felt. The envelope was a reminder—that he chose and he got paid.

He doesn’t want to let that go. The thought causes panic to rise up in him. But the look on Draco’s face—patient and just a little scared—means almost as much to him as the choice does.

“Are you giving me an ultimatum,” he asks quietly.

“No. If you want to keep getting jobs from Elena, that’s…I’m all right with that for now. One day I might not be, but for now, I wouldn’t take that away from you. But I can’t do it. It’s not a transaction to me anymore.”

It’s not a transaction to Harry anymore either. It’s not something he realized until Draco laid it bare before him. But it hasn’t been a transaction in a while. And that more than anything decides him.

“You don’t use me,” he says.

“No.”

“What we do, it’s a gift to each other.”

Draco closes his eyes, but Harry catches the hope there before he does.

“Yes.”

“Okay, then.” He leans forward, lays his lips across Draco, and breathes, “Okay.”

 

**Author's Note:**

> So this prompt presented a unique challenge because _why_ would Harry be a prostitute in a canon world? He doesn't need the money, I couldn't see him doing it if he lived among his friends or around anyone who would recognize him (thus the move to New York). But that challenge also made it more clear to me how I could talk about consent. And with that I tried to explore how Harry's body and life had been used by those around him to further their own ends without ever really asking his permission, and how he could take back his right to consent to the use of his body and his life through prostitution. I hope I was able to execute it respectfully. 
> 
> I'd love to hear your thoughts on this and the fic in general in the comments! 
> 
> Oh! And 344 W 49th St is an apartment building in New York City, a nice one but not quite as nice as I was imagining it for Draco.


End file.
